


Elves are REAL???

by Little_Red, ozhawk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:10:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Red/pseuds/Little_Red, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozhawk/pseuds/ozhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a visit to Asgard, Darcy find out that Alfheim's denizens are what humans have always known as Elves. A visiting dignitary becomes the object of her interest, and before long Thranduil finds himself intrigued by this little mortal and her apparently endless curiosity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elves are REAL???

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aoisakai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoisakai/gifts).



> This was originally sent to me as a birthday prompt for aoisakai, who is in Rarepair Hell with Darcy and Thranduil. Since I'd never written a crossover with the LotR universe before and had less than no idea how to write Thranduil, I turned to Little_Red (little-red-83) on Tumblr and begged for help. She very graciously obliged and talked me through it. And then promptly got bunnied into all sorts of ideas for where the story could go, at which point I convinced her that she should pick up where I left off and write onwards.

 

Asgard was even more impressively shiny than Darcy expected. And not only the place, the _people_. She’d already met the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, of course, but _everyone_ in Asgard seemed to be impressive physical specimens.

Although _that_ guy was in a whole class of his own. Her head swivelled to watch the tall blond as he walked past her through the long hallway, and she noticed something startling.

“Thor,” she tugged at his arm. “Thor, that dude has pointy ears!”

Thor glanced in the direction of her pointing finger and let loose with one of his hearty laughs. “Darcy, ‘that dude’ is King Thranduil, a visiting dignitary from Alfheim.”

“Wait,” her eyes popped. “Alfheim - _elves_?”

“Yes, I believe Midgardians called them such, when the Alfheimr walked your world.”

“Fuuuuck,” Darcy whispered under her breath, awed. “Janey, elves! Elves are REAL!”

Jane was far too busy playing with some bit of Asgardian technology she’d scooped up from a table when nobody was looking, though, and Darcy was left to stare in amazement at the blond elf, who’d stopped at the end of the hallway to speak to someone. He really was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen, all long clean limbs and smooth shiny hair. As though sensing her scrutiny, he turned his head and looked directly at her.

Embarrassed to have been caught staring, Darcy turned hastily away, blushing a little, unaware that Thranduil’s eyes slid over her curves with more than a passing interest.

“Thranduil?” Loki, still masquerading as Odin, said impatiently as the Alfheimr king’s attention drifted.

“Your pardon, All-Father,” but Thranduil was still looking down the hallway. “It has been long since humans walked the halls of Asgard.”

Loki ground his teeth together. “Yes,” he said tightly. “Yes, Prince Thor’s beloved is Midgardian. She is visiting here at the moment, along with her lady companion.”

“Ah,” Thranduil nodded in understanding, dragging his attention away from the woman’s shapely behind with some effort. He did not care for this weakness in himself, for the more curvaceous forms of human women, but it should be easy enough to withstand temptation if there were only two of them on Asgard and one was spoken for!

Thranduil had to restrain the urge to bang his head hard against the carved timber back of his chair when he saw who his partner at the dinner table was. Glancing along the table, he met Odin’s smirk and silently fumed. Odin disliked mortals even more than Thranduil; no doubt the places at the table had been arranged to keep them as far from the All-Father as possible. In no way could seating the maiden beside a king be considered insulting to Thor, though _Thranduil_ might have been insulted. If he hadn’t known very well that it was merely Odin’s foul sense of humour asserting itself.

He couldn’t even rely on any assistance in keeping the human in conversation, since Volstagg was seated on her other side, and Thranduil knew that the Asgardian would pay attention to nothing but his food. With a small, resigned sigh, Thranduil bent his head in polite acknowledgement as the Midgardian woman seated herself and stared around with wide, incredulous blue eyes.

“Oh!” she looked directly at him then, started and blushed. It was a becoming look, Thranduil realised unwillingly; almost as becoming as the silken saffron-coloured gown which certainly made the most of her figure. From the vantage of his height, he could take in the spectacular view of her cleavage as well as her face.

“How do you do? I’m Darcy Lewis,” she said, in tones that were obviously intended to be polite.

_She does not know that she must wait for me to speak first, since I am of higher rank_ , Thranduil thought contemptuously; but the voice of his conscience, a voice which sounded suspiciously like that of his son, pointed out dryly that Darcy Lewis had no way to know of his rank. He wasn’t wearing his crown, not here in the halls of Asgard.

“Thranduil of Mirkwood and Alfheim, Lady Darcy,” he responded in cool tones.

“You mean _King_ Thranduil, don’t you, Your Majesty?” she said with a pert little smile. “Or is this some attempt to go incognito?”

_So she_ does _know who I am_ , he thought. Aloud he said “In the halls of Asgard, my title means little, Lady Darcy.”

“Well, I have no title at all, so please, call me Darcy.” She offered a rather charming little smile. Amused despite wanting to dislike her - this would be a lot easier if she had a face like a horse and the voice of a crow - Thranduil returned the smile.

“As you please. And are you enjoying your visit to Asgard, Darcy?” Politely, he lifted the flagon of wine in front of him, tilted it invitingly towards Darcy’s cup.

“Thank you,” she nodded for him to pour. “Yes, I am. Jane told me how incredibly beautiful it is, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me. There is a feeling of incredible age, and yet everything looks so new and shining. It’s a curious dichotomy, such that I can’t help but wonder if it is shared by other long-lived, highly advanced races. Is Alfheim similar, Your Majesty?”

Thranduil blinked, not at all prepared for the insightful, intriguing response she had delivered to his merely rhetorical question. _Humans have evolved much since last I encountered some_ , he thought privately, refilling his own cup.

“Similar and yet different,” he replied in response to her question. “My people live in a closer communion with Nature than the Æsir.”

“I have to ask,” she took a sip of the wine, smiling as she found that she liked the taste, “are Midgardian stories of elves anything like the reality? Mm, that’s really nice,” she took another, longer sip.

“I do not know,” Thranduil said a little stiffly. “It has been many centuries since last I spoke with one of your kind.” He took a long drink of the wine to mask his discomfort. At least Asgardian wine was tolerable, unlike the ghastly swill produced on Midgard. He hoped Darcy Lewis appreciated the difference.

“Because there’s a Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, in this really awesome book by an incredibly famous author in our world, John Ronald Reuel Tolkein…”

Thranduil almost choked on his wine, failing to suppress a snarl. Volstagg, on Darcy’s other side, started chortling. “Oh yes, tell her about Tolkein, Thranduil!”

Darcy looked from Thranduil to Volstagg with a grin beginning on her face. “This is going to be good. I can just tell.” Having another slug of the wine, she nudged Thranduil, who had gone very stiff, in the ribs. “Go on, Thrandy. Fill me in.”

He was too angered even by the mention of Tolkein’s name to notice what she had called him. “Tolkein was _not_ a writer of your world. He was Alfheimr, banished for… for…” this was _so_ embarrassing. Especially with Darcy’s bright-eyed gaze bent on him inquiringly. “He was a court bard, banished for writing and singing mocking tales.”

“About you,” she guessed with a chuckle.

“Yes, about me! And in his vengeance he mocked me further yet, by bastardising some of our greatest legends into stories for the amusement of the primitive humans we sent him to live among!”

Darcy couldn’t help it. She collapsed into laughter.

Thranduil’s frown grew more thunderous. Every time Darcy looked at him, her giggles resurged, no matter how hard she tried to throttle them back.

Eventually, Thranduil found a small smile growing on his own face.

“Legolas told me that it was my own fault for being a ‘complete pompous prig’, as he put it,” he admitted. “It is possible that my son may have had a point.”

“Oh, dear,” Darcy had to wipe at her streaming eyes. “Oh, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Tolkein’s entire body of work is _bad fanfiction_?”

Thranduil’s rueful grin confirmed it. She grabbed her cup of wine and swigged another mouthful down to avoid another fit of the giggles. Thranduil poured her some more, which was probably a really terrible idea because she was already feeling very warm and fuzzy. And giggly, but then he’d just told her something utterly and totally hilarious. Even if he was, apparently, the butt of the joke.

“I think you should have some more of that too,” Darcy said, “quite a lot of it, actually, and then you might unbend a bit and I can ask you if Sauron really was a complete and utter bastard. And if your son Legolas is as hot as you, or even as hot as Orlando Bloom.”

Laughing despite himself, Thranduil took a long drink from his own cup. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d already had half a flagon;  perhaps that was the reason he was finding her rather amusing. Asgardian wine did have a kick to it that the vintages produced on Alfheim lacked. That the little mortal had drunk a whole cup and only succumbed to a giggle fit was quite remarkable.

“You are so mean,” he said confidingly to her when she nudged him again. “I’m okay with that,” he discovered, rather to his surprise. “I like you, Darcy Lewis of Midgard. You must tell me who this Orlando Bloom is, and why you think Legolas might resemble him.”

“I’m gonna get Heimdall to send me back tomorrow to pick up my DVDs,” she said. “And a player - and a TV - no, on second thoughts, I’ll just grab a StarkPad, somehow I don’t think the electricity supplies are going to be compatible.” Grinning up at Thranduil, she said “Because you REALLY need a Hobbit marathon, Thrandy.”

“After that, you shall come with me to visit Alfheim,” he said magnanimously, “and you shall judge for yourself its beauty.” Though he had already decided that he had no intention of introducing her to Legolas.

This little mortal, Thranduil would keep for himself.


End file.
